Dolphins are still basking in the euphoria of winning Nigeria’s elite women’s basketball championship, the Zenith Bank Premier League 2025.
The coach Peter Akindele ladies fended off First Bank’s late surge into over time to earn a hard-fought 61-55 point win yesterday 20 September 2025 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos.
A jubilant Dolphins’ captain Gbemisola Samuel couldn’t contain her joy post match.
“I didn’t even know what to say. I think I am too excited. But if God designs something for somebody I know it’s definitely going to come to pass. I just see the late First Bank challenge as obstacles that came in between the success. And we just had to fight through and we did it,” stated Samuel who scored 13 points in the final.
In contrast, First Bank’s coach Juliana Negedu had reservations about the final.
“The truth of the matter, to an extent the atmosphere affected the information we were trying to pass across,” explained Negedu who coached Nigeria to the last FIBA Under 18 Women World Cup in Czech Republic.
“They shouldn’t have given everybody the horn. We couldn’t pass information the way we wanted. Even when we had timeout, the players couldn’t hear us properly.”
Despite her complaints about the loud atmosphere, coach Negedu also pointed out her players’ inability to stick to their game plan.
“We had a structure, we had a plan down. All we needed was to follow suit and not rush along with them. We are a calm playing team, we are an organised side. We were rushing alongside . We needed to just take our time and run our plan and everything will fall into place.”
Earlier in the day, MFM defeated Royal Aces 70-46 in the bronze medal match to finish third in the Final 8 tournament.
The president of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, Musa Kida, and the chairman of the national Sports Commission, Shehu Dikko graced the occasion with their presence.
The GMD/CEO of Zenith Bank PlC, Dame (Dr.) Adaora Umeoji, performed the official tipoff of the final match with Dolphins scoring the opening two points enroute winning their second title.
Dolphins carted home the ultimate prize money of N7.5M, First Bank received N5M while N3M went to MFM.
For individual honours, Dolphins’ duo of Awele Okoh and Tewogbade Mololuwa respectively won the MVP and highest shooter awards.
Bidemi Ogedengbe of Royal Aces picked up the highest rebounder accolade while, Hembam Wandoo of MFM went home with the highest three point award.
All individual awardees received five hundred thousand Naira.
Both Dolphins and First Bank will represent Nigeria in the Zonal Qualifying for the Africa Women Basketball, AWBL 2025.
The qualifying is tentatively scheduled between 26th October and 1st November 2025 while the AWBL will take place in Cairo, Egypt between 4th and 15th December 2025.
Reporting By Kelechi Bernard